progressive taxation

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Perhaps it shouldn't come as a shock that, as ends no longer come close to meeting, and as households reel under the strain of systems and employers that treat quality of life as an inconvenience, people are turning to "alternative funding models" to try and buy themselves some security.

Which means that moms-to-be in the U.S., without maternity leave benefits, are crowdfunding to try and literally buy some time with their newborns.

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For the last five years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has consistently been revising downwards its forecasts of world economic growth.

In a slowing global economy, eyes turned to Shanghai where the Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers and central bankers sat down February 26-27 to assess the worsening outlook, and agree on what to do together.

Take some money from the wealthy, give it to the poor -- why not do it? Basic accounting suggests that another $1,000 for a student with a $10,000 yearly income puts them further ahead than the same amount does for someone earning $100,000. After all, it gives the student a boost of 10 per cent, and the affluent person only one per cent.

In Canada, the small amount of income redistributed to the poor has long been a matter of public debate. Lately, the poor have been losing. The low-tax, small-government crowd, both Liberal and Conservative, have had control of the federal government for decades.

Don't

Rachel Notley led the Alberta NDP to victory on May 6 calling for higher taxes on corporations to pay for more teachers and better health care. Interestingly, in 1990, Bob Rae led the Ontario NDP to victory pointing to corporations that paid no income tax.

The federal NDP is calling for higher corporate taxes, hoping it will become an election issue in October, a rallying point for Canadians fed up with the underfunding of health care, and other government services.

The Nova Scotia budget tabled this week is without vision. It was constructed to deal primarily with the deficit.

Undertaking "restructuring" and "right-sizing" of the public sector to balance the budget may well make things worse. In contrast, CCPA-NS projected that Nova Scotia's fiscal health will continually improve provided the government recognizes its responsibility to invest in the economy, and economic growth.

Imagine for a moment two societies living side by side. One has discovered and uses the wheel effectively -- a technology that makes life easier for workers and boosts the economy for everyone. Prosperity reigns. The society next door is well aware of the wheel and watches as its neighbours move inexorably ahead -- wealthier, more efficient, healthier and with more leisure time for cultural activities. But it is not those who do the work in this society who reject the wheel -- it is the governing elite, the priests, the official advisers and scribes who have incorporated a moral objection to the wheel into the state religion. Use of the wheel is thus proscribed by faith, not reason. All practical arguments in its favour are rendered useless.

A colleague of mine pointed out a relatively new paper about the distributional impacts of B.C.'s carbon tax. In my work, we look at actual energy expenditures by different household groups, and because lower-income groups spend a greater share of their income on (carbon-intensive) energy, any carbon tax is regressive. But that regressivity ultimately depends on what you do with the revenues, and can be compensated with a credit. In B.C.'s case, when the carbon tax was instituted, there was a decent low-income credit that made the overall regime progressive, but as the tax increased from $10 to $30 per tonne, the credit did not keep up, and the current regime is regressive.